Indy500 Winner Josef Newgarden Ends F1 Drivers in Just One Sentence

Taking a direct shot at the sport, Indy 5oo winner Josef Newgarden recently claimed that any driver from his series would be able to compete at the highest level in F1. On the Pat McAfee show, he admitted that not only would they race in F1, but they would thrive.

The 33-year-old said, “Any of us could and we would rock it,” when Pat McAfee asked him about his ability to race in F1.

Newgarden created history last weekend, becoming the first driver in 22 years to record back-to-back Indy500 victories. He started the race on the front row. And faced little difficulty in sticking to the front of the pack throughout.

However, a last-lap tussle with Pat O’Ward left the Nashville-born driver slightly unsettled. After a battle, Newgarden managed to pass O’Ward when it mattered to most to take home the win after 200 laps of racing.

@PatMcAfeeShow “You can race in F1 right?”@josefnewgarden “Absolutely. Any of us could and we would rock it.”

Love the confidence from Mr. Back-to-Back pic.twitter.com/aUZnvHI5k9

— Vincenzo Landino (@vincenzolandino) May 28, 2024

Overall, there were 649 on-track overtakes in the Indy500 event on the same Sunday when the 2024 Monaco GP also took place. However, the latter was termed as boring by both drivers and fans, and there were just four overtakes in total.

This stark contrast in stats ended up acting as a callback to Newgarden’s past claims of Netflix drumming up storylines for Drive to Survive.

Josef Newgarden once took a dig at Netflix’s Drive to Survive

In April 2023, Josef Newgarden took a shot at Netflix and F1’s blockbuster docuseries ‘Drive to Survive’ (DTS). Ahead of the launch of the ‘100 Days of Indy Series’, Newgarden claimed that IndyCar was much too competitive to be fabricated into a docu-series.

‘100 Days to Indy’ Star Josef Newgarden Throws Shade at Authenticity of Netflix F1 Series ‘Drive to Survive’: ‘No Need to Fabricate’ – @TheWrap https://t.co/AwIXAeL7nc

— Adam Stern (@A_S12) April 13, 2023

Newgarden’s fabrication allegations aren’t baseless, however. After immense success in seasons one and two of DTS, the makers started getting called out for over-dramatizing certain rivalries and incidents.

The American driver felt that IndyCar’s series, on the other hand, was real. “Unlike some motorsports products,” he added.